mukhābara, as Mālik held.

The correct position is that the prohibited mukhābara is what Rāfi‘ ibn Khadīj explained it to be. Al-Layth ibn Sa‘d likewise said:

“What the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, forbade is something that anyone with insight into the lawful and unlawful would recognize as forbidden upon examining it.”

This is the position of the majority of jurists of the hadith tradition, such as Ahmad, Ishāq, Ibn al-Mundhir, Ibn Khuzayma, and others. The Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, prohibited practices that fall within what Allah prohibited in His Book. Allah prohibited usury and gambling in His Book, and the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, prohibited sales involving uncertainty, because they are a form of gambling. The same applies to selling fruit before it shows signs of ripening and to the sale known as habal al-habala. He also prohibited exchanging gold for gold and silver for silver except in equal amounts, along with other transactions that fall within usury.

Some scholars thus came to think that certain practices were covered by the general prohibition or its underlying general rationale, although they were not. Some, for example, included leasing orchards for a full year or several years to someone who waters and tends them until they bear fruit. They thought this fell under selling fruit before it shows signs of ripening, and therefore prohibited it.

Yet this is actually a lease, like leasing land. Just as he forbade selling grain before it hardens, while permitting land to be leased to someone who cultivates it until it yields a crop, so too he forbade selling fruit before it shows signs of ripening, but did not forbid leasing orchards to someone who tends them until they bear fruit. The fruit is produced through his own labour and belongs to him. The seller of fruit